An ongoing, eclectic commentary on Unitarian Universalism, after retirement from active ministry--as I see it, practice it, and love it, with sidebars on life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

A Golden Oldie: Hope Has Human Hands

It's been more than ten years since I preached this sermon at the Pacific UU Fellowship. I wonder if anyone will remember it from those long ago days! I still like it myself and find that it still expresses my theology of Hope. I hope others do too.

HOPE HAS HUMAN HANDS

Rev. Kit Ketcham, May 18, 2014

In
the late 40’s, early 50’s, there was a song which, when it came on the radio,
would make my dadgroan and move
as if to turn it off, muttering “that darn song, it’s so sticky!”, and my
mother and I would cry out, “no, we want to hear it!”It was a sentimental song and its words could even be said
to be a bit schmaltzy.And I’ll
bet you haven’t heard it for years, but if you remember it and feel like
joining in, sing with me.

“Soft
as the voice of an angel, breathing a lesson unheard, HOPE with a gentle
persuasion whispers her comforting word:Wait till the darkness is over, Wait till the tempest is done, Hope for
the sunshine tomorrow, after the shower is gone.Whispering Hope, oh how welcome thy voice, making my heart,
in its sorrow, rejoice.”

In
those days, hope--to me--meant miracles; it meant a sort of Pollyanna-ish
optimism that “everything will be fine in the morning”.It meant that no matter how desperate
the financial situation of our family, we would have food on the table; someone
from my dad’s little Baptist congregation would deposit a freshly killed Canada
gooseor venison roast or string
of fish on our doorstep.

Hope,
in my young mind, was a kind of insurance policy, a belief that God would not
desert us if we were faithful.Hope provided for miraculous recoveries, last-minute rescues.It meant that the sun would always
rise, that spring would follow winter, that seeds would grow, that birth would
produce new life, that Superman WOULD arrive on time!

I’m
not sure how I reconciled my beliefs with my experience in those days.Though I knew at some level that Hope
as a technique didn’t always work, I continued to profess my belief that it
would and did produce miracles.

But I guess I figured that even Hope had
to take a few days off occasionally; that was probably why my friend Lynn did
not recover completely from an unusually serious bout with mononucleosis,why my dad, who was a Baptist minister,
sometimes couldn’t make it all the way through his sermon and had to sit down
to catch his breath, scaring us all to death.Hope was on break those days.And, of course, it wasn’t Hope’s fault
that I didn’t make straight A’s in school; I hoped I would, but obviously Hope
wasn’t enough.

What
does Hope mean to Unitarian Universalists?We are kind of past the miracle stage.If we are ill, we may hope for a rapid
recovery; if a loved one is dying, we may hope for an unexpected sudden cure or
a peaceful death.We may hope, as
I often do, that the rattle in the car will turn out to be harmless, that the
problem ahead of us is not really as bad as it looks, that the grocery line
will not be too long, that we can pay the bills, that the kids willbe home soon.Our daily hopes are usually simple and focused on our
immediate needs and desires.

Over
the years, as I’ve examined my religious faith in light of my own experience, I
have gradually revamped my thoughts about Hope as a religious concept.

It seems to me that the Hope that is
innate in the human spirit is more than simply a wish for good outcomes, for
peace on earth, a politically correct holiday greeting.Hope is far more than cliches or a wish
for miracles.It is not trivial or
sentimental.

The
definition I’ve come up with after many years of observing my own need for hope
and the moments which seem to create hope, for me and for others, is this:HOPE IS MY AWARENESS, MY DEEP
UNDERSTANDING,THAT I AM CONNECTED
TO THE INEXTINGUISHABLE STREAM OF LIFE, THAT I AM PART OF THE WHOLE.

Let
me repeat that definition and ask you to compare your own experiences to
it.For me, HOPE is the clear
sense that I am a part of the inextinguishable, inexhaustible stream of life.For me, it is a tangible sense of my
place in the universe.It is the
fiber of the interdependent web of all existence, the connection I have to all
else in life.

When
I have lost HOPE, I have lost my sense that I belong to the universe, to the
web, to life itself.But HOPE is
strengthened in me with every reminderI receive of that connection.It maystart when I first
see the seedlings pop up in my garden.It may be triggered by the purring of the cat on my lap as I read.Even a stranger’s greeting on the
sidewalk or beach may evoke a warmth that reminds me that I do belong here, I
am a part of life.

Hope
is found in relationship, whether it is in my relationship with my pets, with
my friends and family, with strangers, with all of nature or God, if you are
comfortable with that idea.

If
religion is defined as the expression of human relationships with self, with
others, and with the universe, then Hope is a manifestation of that
relationship and a valuable piece of our active faith.Unitarian Universalists mostly do not
hope for a heavenly home; we hope for an earthly home that is heavenly and we
know that is our job.

A friend talked with me about her second
biopsy for breast cancer.“I was
scared to death,” she said.“I’d
already had one surgery and was terrified that this was the beginning of the
end.I felt loose from my
moorings, adrift, disconnected, hopeless.And I knew I couldn’t bear it without help.The nurse started to move away from me after the test, and I
said to her, ‘I need you to hold on to me’.She took my hand and I felt myself re-connect with
life.She gave me more hope than a
negative biopsy.”

Hope does not rely on Divine
Intervention, but on human hands.Hope is our job, not God’s, despite nature’s constant and faithful
supply of hopefulness.The sun
always rises, spring always comes, the snowalways melts, the cycles of creation go on and on.We derive great hope from that faithful
repetition of nature’s patterns.But nature also socks us in the teeth:tsunamis and hurricanes demolish whole coastlines,
avalanches wipe out homes and travelers, the wind whips fire through dry
underbrush, the sun burns our skin, disease wipes out millions, rains bring
flooding and mud slides.

We
can’t control it but we can respond to it.

“Hope
springs eternal in the human breast”, according to the poet Alexander Pope
because human beings have an innate gift for hope.When disaster strikes, other human beings immediately reach
out to victims.It seems inherent
in human nature to give aid in times of trouble.An old Judy Collins song says “Friends are like diamonds,
and trouble is a diamond mine.”

That
doesn’t mean all human beings give aid, just that we’re all capable of it.Some of us have so squelched our
natural inclination to help that wewill walk right by, ignoring trouble or fearing the consequences to
ourselves.Sometimes it is truly
dangerous to offer help; it’s not always easy to know right help from
wrong.But sometimes we withhold
our help because we see no benefit to ourselves from it, we see no reason to
help because our goal in giving help is so we’ll get something back later on .

Like
love, hope is active.We can give
hope to ourselves and one another.In fact, I believe, we have a responsibility to do so.

I
believe that it is in everyday human acts of kindness and respect that we find
our own hope rekindled and that others’ hope is also reborn when we reach out
to them.

I
believe that hope is not passive, something we wait around for, but that it is
created and recreated daily in ourselves and others.

I
believe that we need to recognize our own capacity for giving hope and increase
our efforts to do so.And I
believe that we must recognize our own need for hope and actively seek it out.

I
believe that hope is at the heart of liberal religion, of Unitarian
Universalism.We give
it to ourselves and to others as we live out our UU principles and purposes.It is the sinew that links us with the
interdependent web of existence, the fiber that binds us to one another.Without it, we cannot resist evil.It is our daily work, to give and
receive hope.

Hope
is our human response to tragedy, whether it is evil brought by perverted human
nature or the damage of natural disaster.When another human being is injured, it is up to fellow humans to mend
the damage.We might wish that a
vengeful God would strike down evildoers or quell natural forces, but it is up
to human hands to offer hope.

What
does it mean that we are responsible for giving hope?It means that we have a job to do.We don’t know, always, in our daily lives, just who needs
hope at any given moment.We have
to assume that everyone does.We
have to be ready to offer hope to everyone we meet, whether that’s the crabby
clerk atthe store, the
multiply-pierced and tattooed teens in the park, the stray cat or dog, the
frustrated parent with a toddler, the nursing home patient who can no longer
remember our name, the homeless man camping in the woods, the beleaguered
teacher, our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender neighbors, or the victim
of domestic violence.

We
ourselves also need hope and we can seek it out for ourselves, whether we do it
by taking a walk, talking to a friend,giving money to charity or the homeless guy on the corner, listening to
music, pulling weeds, reading poetry, asking for a hug or a listening ear,
starting seedlings, feeding the birds, cleaning out a drawer, greeting a
stranger, or spending time in prayer or meditation.We give ourselves and others hope every time we reach out to
those who need justice and love.

Several
years ago in Denver, a young woman named Jeannie Van Velkinburgh ran to help
Oumar Dia, a West African man who was shot at a downtown bus stop just because
he was black.She got a bullet in
the back for her efforts and became a paraplegic.A cynic might say she should have left well enough alone,
that she shouldn’t have gotten involved, because look what it got her.

Jeannie
VanVelkinburgh didn’t think so; she knew that not only did she offer hope to
Oumar Dia, she has also given hope to us AND to the murderer, who--though he
may never understand it--has received a powerful lesson in human nature.Human beings are supposed to care for
one another.

Let’srevisit the definition of Hope I am
using this morning:Hope is the
conviction, the reassurance that I am connected to, am part of, the
inexhaustible, unquenchable stream of life.It is my knowledge that I am supported and nurtured by my
place in the interdependent web of existence and it is my job to give it to
others.

I’d like to close with a story from my
own life.

It
was June, many years ago when I was still living in Colorado.I’d been driving Interstate
80 since dawn, from Farewell Bendon the Snake River in eastern Oregon where I’d camped in my van the
night before.I was
returning to Colorado after burying my mother, crossing the hot dry deserts of
southern Idaho and over the border into Utah, pondering the lessons of her life
and death and crying as I drove, my tears drying almost as soon as they
appeared, in the hot blast coming through the open window.And now I was beyond tiredness, in that
late afternoon state of mind where rational thought and fantasy merge, and
reality has a fuzzy edge.

I’d
been seeing a lot of hawks poised on telephone poles or circling overhead,
their broad wings barely flickering to stay afloat.My mother had loved birds, and hawks and eagles were
interesting to both of us.Each
bird felt like a message, but in my emotional state, I couldn’t quite figure it
out.

Every
redtail or northern harrier caused me a fresh pang, and by the time I reached
the outskirts of Salt Lake City, I had exhausted my tear ducts and my brain.

I
wanted to be back in Colorado as soon as I could.I wanted to drive a favorite route through the mountains,
but I had no idea how to find it in the maze of interstates, beltways, and
smaller roads that interlace the Salt Lake valley.

I
drove south into SLC, peering through my foggy contact lenses at unintelligible
signs, looking for landmarks.Nothing.I realized I was
in the far left lane of a 6-lane interstate and, in my weariness, nearly
sideswiped another car as I tried to pull the huge van over so I could read my
map.

At
last came a break in traffic, and I eased over to the shoulder, cringing for
fear I had missed seeing some hapless little car in my mirror, and half-expecting
to feel a sickening crunch.But I
made it, stopped the van, and, once again, the tears came.I was safe, I hadn’t hit anyone, but I
was exhausted and bereft.

Suddenly,
in my rearview mirror, I saw the ominous blink--blue and red, blue and
red.“Oh no,” I thought, and
hastily mopped my eyes as I fumbled for my car registration.

There
appeared at the driverside window a short stocky cop, his hat pushed back on
his head, his face serious and concerned.I braced myself for the worst, assuming he’d seen my near-accident, but
in a voice of infinite kindness, he just asked, “Lady, are you lost?”

That
man could not have known just how lost I was.I couldn’t find myself on any map--neither the map of Utah
nor the map of my life.I didn’t
know where I was after my mother’s death; I only knew I needed to go home.

I
don’t know what I said to him, besides asking how to find route 40, but he
neither remarked on my tears nor ticketed me, and within a few minutes I was on
my way again.

As
I topped the last long hill up out of Salt Lake City, my eye fell upon the
broad winged silhouette of another redtailed hawk, soaring just above the
horizon.

And
all the confused, jumbled thinking that I’d been doing all day--the memories of
my mother, my grief at losing her, my anger at myself for all the years I’d
felt motherless because of my own rejection of her religious beliefs and
because of her illness, the link to birds and mountains and all of nature, the
incandescent flame of her unconditional love for me---all these coalesced into
one single thought.

I
AM NOT ALONE.I AM NOT
ALONE.I AM IN THE ARMS OF THE
UNIVERSE,I AM IN THE ARMS
OF LOVE.

Emily
Dickinson wrote:“Hope is the
thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the
words and never stops at all.”

When
we offer hope to ourselves and to one another, with each smile, each touch,
each act of kindness and understanding, we knit up the rips and tears in the
interdependent web of existence and bring each other closer to spiritual
wholeness.

Let’s
pause for a moment of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION

Our
worship service, our time of shaping worth together is ended, but our service
to the world begins again as we leave this place.Let us go in peace, remembering that no act of kindness is
in vain, that our efforts to bring hope to each other and to the larger
community will bring us hope as well.May we find ways to minister to the community in which we live, ways
which will foster lovingkindness in the world, ways which will address some of
the systemic problems that plague society, and ways which will bring us the
peace of mind of knowing that together we have offered hope to a hurting world.Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.